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Given that the New York Times news section has, since the Clinton administration, had an insidiously subtle pro-GOP tilt, it is fortunate that columnists like Frank Rich save the "paper of record" from sinking (completely) into ignominious collaboration with the White House. (Yes, we always must offer the qualification that the NYT editorial page is still basically liberal -- except that it fully supported the Iraq War, a huge mistake.)

Frank Rich, like Paul Krugman, gets the big picture of the Bushevik power grab that undermines our Constitutional democracy. And Rich, a former theater critic, fully understands the "packaging" of the Bush Administration and how it uses dramatic narratives to sell its fantasies. Who could better understand an administration built on using theatrical and marketing tricks of the trade than a former Broadway reviewer?

And as many theater critics are known for disemboweling bad drama, Rich regularly lacerates the Bush Administration for its efforts to employ entertainment as propaganda rather than engage in the business of governing the nation.

Rich's latest book is appropriately titled, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

It's a merciless guide to the Rovian "Bible" of Machiavellian politics, in which the American public sits in the audience as rubes.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. This blistering j'accuse has vitriol to spare for George Bush—calling him a "spoiled brat" and "blowhard"—and his policies, but its main target is the PR machinery that promoted those policies to the American people. New York Times columnist Rich revisits nearly every Bush administration publicity gambit, including Iraqi WMD claims, Bush's "Mission Accomplished" triumph, the Swift-boating of John Kerry and the writing of fake prowar letters-to-the-editor from soldiers. He uncovers nothing new, but his meticulously researched recap-cum-debunking—complete with appended 80-page time line comparing administration spin to actual events—builds a comprehensive picture of a White House propaganda campaign to bamboozle the public, smear critics, camouflage policy disasters and win the 2002 and 2004 elections through trumped-up security anxieties. Along the way, he pillories a sycophantic media (Bob Woodward gets spanked hard), spineless Democrats and an infotainment culture that happily accommodates the Bush administration's erasure of the line between reality and fiction. Sometimes Rich's critique of Republican politics as cynical image-manipulation goes overboard, as in his "wag the dog" theory of the Iraq war as a Karl Rove electoral maneuver; more often, though, it's on target. The result is a caustic, hard-hitting indictment of the Bush administration, timed to make a splash in the upcoming election campaign.

Ironically, the New York Times gave Rich's book a glowing review, even though, by implication, it is a condemnation of the NYT coverage of the Iraq War, among other news: "Bob Woodward, one of Rich’s chief bêtes noires, has more access in Washington than any journalist, but the weakness of his work is that he never seems to be better than his sources.... Fearing the loss of access at the top and overrating the importance of quotes from powerful people, as well as an unjustified terror of being accused of liberal bias, have crippled the press at a time when it is needed more than ever. Frank Rich is an excellent product of that press, and if it ever recovers its high reputation, it will be partly thanks to one man who couldn’t take it anymore."

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